TC199: Brian Shoop, Alabama-Birmingham

The number of times that Brian Shoop‘s name has been brought up on Top Coach is hard to remember. Let’s just say that many coaches, including Auburn’s Butch Thompson, have listed Coach Shoop as one of their great influences. When you listen to the head coach of the University of Alabama-Birmingham in this episode, you’ll understand why.

In this episode, Coach Shoop talks about the early days of coaching, including living off of the fruits of a garden (green beans!) and leftover sandwiches from team meals before be became a residence hall director (then it was the high life!). He also addresses the D1 graduate assistant position (or lack thereof), how his family’s home life (including homeschooling) was built around the baseball schedule (he had lunch with his family nearly every day), how special a place it was at Birmingham Southern (he most likely would have retired there if the program would not have been shut down), working with his wife to consider future options, attending 82 weddings (to this point) of former players, and Ron Polk(!).

Let me save you some ink. Great quotes from Coach Shoop:

“The best job in the country is the place where you’re at.”“You can’t complain and be thankful at the same time.”“The best way to get another job is to do the best job where you”re at.”“No success on the job is worth failure at home.”
“We work our guts out to win, but we don’t want winning to be god.”
“Our mission: The development of uncommon men.”

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